photography

All posts tagged photography

I’m out with a camera. If I can be. Which is not as often as I’d like (either the lightning or being out in it).

Tonight I overheard two passerbys exclaim, “Ooh, lightning!”. My ears pricked up and I raced outside to see if they were seeing what I hoped they were seeing. They were.

I live about 100 metres away from the sea, and once before I’ve gone to investigate weird orange flashes spotted faintly over the neighbours’ house to find a lightning storm out to sea. I grabbed my camera then and took a tonne of photos including the above one, but messed up the focus. Tonight was my first chance since then to do better.

Tonight’s shot: f/4.5, 8.0, ISO 1250

Camera settings:

Focus to infinity. Remember that infinity is actually often just a smidge to the left of the mark on your lens. Each lens is different.

Low ISO – 100-200

Aperture: f/10-f/16 – but it varies depending on closeness of the lightning. The aim is to minimise the brightness of a bolt with a narrow aperture, and the long exposure compensates to bring up the rest of the image to a good exposure.

Shutter speed: Varies depending on frequency of lightning. 8-15 seconds is a good starting point. Long exposures increase noise, so lots of frequent shorter shots are better than one long exposure. A bright close bolt can also completely blow out your image.

If shooting through a car window, use a polarising filter to cut through any reflections

You’ll notice I didn’t manage 2/3 of the important exposure settings. My excuse is that there was so much activity in the cloud that I didn’t want to leave the shutter open much longer and a lower ISO wasn’t capturing enough detail. I have to say most advice I’ve seen on lightning photography doesn’t mention storms over 200kms away!

Beyond the Camera:

Night shots are easier, the longer your shutter speed is open, the better chance of capturing a bolt

An approaching storm is ideal, so there’s not too much rain between you and the lightning. A downpour will, ahem, considerably dampen the clarity of the lightning bolts.

A tripod is absolutely necessary

Post-Processing:

As with any other photo. Light balance is a funny one, my camera has recorded lurid purple with lightning. Many photographers head to the Tungsten setting to create an electric blue cast. It’s all a matter of taste. The clarity slider is a fun one to play with, along with contrast and highlights.

Another fun thing worth trying is stacking several shots together to group the lightning into one image.

Next I’ll try stacking the photos I took tonight. The second shot above is one 8 second frame, but most of my other shots only have one bolt and some cloud colour in them. I’m not sure stacking will work given the amount of light that was in the cloud, but there’s only one way to find out!

You constantly take great photos. How many does it take to get a perfect shot?

My brother-in-law left this question (and kind comment) on facebook. The image he left it under was actually a straightforward one for me, where nature did all the hard work (although I had to remove a couple of power lines).

I can’t remember exactly how many shots I took, as I’m brutal with deleting shots that are near identical, but from memory it was only 2-3, and that’s only because my camera pretty much lives in “burst” mode. I was out walking and nearly home when the sky caught my eye and I grabbed a couple of quick shots. Sunset (and sunrise) light changes fast, clouds move quick, and that sky wouldn’t have been there for long enough to get many more.

But I am a “million monkeys” photographer – if I take enough shots, one will be pretty good, right? Digital is cheap. Certainly that was and to some extent is still my ethos, although my camera lives in burst mode because I also love taking photos of birds and other wildlife even in my own suburbs and “shoot and spray” is the only method I’ll ever capture those creatures when walking about.

Being a million monkeys photographer means I come home with hundreds of shots when I’ve been out on a dedicated shooting mission, which then get whittled down to a third or less, and maybe just a handful get seen by anyone else. Learning what to keep and what to junk has been a skill in itself; realising that no-one will ever see the ones I don’t pick helps. What if I need… need what? When am I going to need a near-identical image with a slightly different angle? Choosing which lines, angles, light is the best of the bunch is part of the learning curve. Which has the best composition? Where is it best to have more space? Giving myself options by taking a bunch of similar photos helps my eye and improves my composition skills. Sometimes an image I thought was composed great in camera was actually better in a slightly different composition taken before or after when seen on the big screen.

Looking back over older photos, as I do a lot when uploading to art sites in particular, I have noticed that being a million monkeys photographer isn’t enough. Sure, it’s netted me some beauties, but if the basics aren’t right then it doesn’t matter if I’ve taken one or one hundred or one thousand photos. I cringe when I notice some of the mistakes I made on my earlier work – wrong aperture/wrong ISO are two classics of mine – and sometimes those mistakes have ruined what could have been good images (especially for printing and selling). Some don’t see the light of day as a result, or are only uploaded to my family snapshots smugmug page. I wonder if taking many shots gave me a false sense of security.

So how many photos? Usually a lot. Rightly or wrongly, it’s how my technique has developed. Being more of a purist would mean less time spent in front of a computer ditching the runners-up (and maybe net me a million dollar sale! A gorgeous image, but I bet I couldn’t promise to have only taken one shot), but instead I’ve worked on improving my workflow to save some of that time. It may also mean I may have spent less time at the camera perfecting and checking everything before I took any shot, but I would have missed a few shots in that process as well. For me, having lots of results to review has definitely helped me work out what works and what doesn’t, then apply that next time I’m out and about. I don’t track my ratio of rejects and keepers but hopefully it’s improving!

So many times, something has caught my eye when I’m not really looking for a photo, but I do like to have a camera to hand when I can, so I reach for it and start shooting.

I start with what I saw. Then I move left, move right, zoom in, pull out, stop up, stop down… play for as long as time permits.

But so often it’s the first view that works the best. The main exception is the aperture setting, as generally I leave it as wide as possible which isn’t always the best. But what is often the best is that angle I first saw and wanted to capture.

So many times I’ve read that you must move around your subject. And those writers are right, especially when you’re coming up to a well-photographed landmark or a common subject. When you’re out specifically looking for a photo, then yes, move around, then move around some more.

But when something unexpected has leapt out at you and you’ve just HAD to stop and take that photo, even when your partner has disappeared into the crowd or you’re in danger of running late, then often that first image is the right one. Time and time again I take a string of photos only to return to the first one, or first few, those with that exact composition that caught my eye in the first place.

Walk around, because there just might be something better, but don’t be afraid to trust your instinct either. I had twenty-four photos of these ballet shoes hanging from the bar at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, snatched with a point’n’shoot in the final minutes before the performance started. Guess which in the series this is.

Celebrating the Bolshoi Ballet in Brisbane, their first visit to Australia in 19 years.

It’s been a while and I have a backlog of stuff I want to post about in my head, that’s only growing longer. I hardly know where to start, so I’m going to start with today.

Today I’ve been coming to grips with my new (to me) Canon 7D camera. See, a while back now, this happened on my beloved Canon 550D

Uh-oh

Needless to say I tried turning the camera off and on again, and I tried re-installing the battery, and I tried any number of other suggestions found on the internet, but it wasn’t to be. Err 30 turned out to be a terminal shutter error. The shutter was not pining. The shutter had died.

My camera is only about two and a half years old, but long out of warranty, and a reputable (I checked, the internet said so) repairer put the total repair cost up to nearly $400. At that point, I began looking at other options.

My research led me to the Canon 7D. I’ve been thinking about finding a camera the next step up for a while but wasn’t planning to jump yet. Now I’d been pushed. The timing was awkward though; ideally I’d be looking at a full frame, probably the Canon 5D Mark II or III, but most of my lenses won’t fit on a full frame camera, and I wasn’t prepared at that point to spend the time or the money selling them and buying new ones. The 7D is the top of the range APS-C Canon, and is weather-resistent, has 19 autofocus points, fast shutter speeds and generally has a good reputation despite being over three years old (“ahead of its time”, says Canon, and general consensus agrees).

If full-frame versus APS-C is talking goobledegook to you, check out this great explanation. It wasn’t that long ago that it was goobledegook to me too!

Given the age of the 7D and not having worked myself up to the idea of spending a huge amount of money, I hunted ebay and found a 7D with extended warranty and not too many shutter actuations (“you wot?” I would have said a few weeks ago. Shutter actuations are how many times the shutter has been released. In the case of my 550D, I suspect my love of continuous mode while shooting kittens may have led to its somewhat early death). As a bonus, the seller lives one suburb north of me, so I had my new camera in my hot lil hands within days.

And now I’ve hit the 7D learning curve. To say it’s steep is an understatement.

When I first picked it up, I couldn’t even work our how to turn it on. The power button is on the opposite side of the camera to the 550D. The back of the 7D is covered in buttons, and there’s a dial and a joystick. There’s more buttons and two dials and a screen on the top. Oh boy.

So I took the manual out of the box and put it somewhere safe to read later. Can I find it now? Of course not. But I know where the box is.

But like so many new things, picking it up and having a go is usually much more fun than reading some tedious manual. My first night of shots, the focus jumped around, it didn’t seem to want to focus in AI Servo mode and live view kept doing weird things. Still, here is Taala, in her new favourite perch (a blanket hung to dry over the wine rack, of course)

This is what happens if you just pick up a 7D and press random buttons… and like a million monkeys on a million typewriters, take enough images

I still haven’t found the manual, but that’s what the internet is for. A couple of interesting threads on the DP Review site (here and here) led me to some great links on the 7D’s autofocusing system (handy summary too) and the many custom functions. I’m still reading both forum threads and I’m sure there’s more to learn besides, but the potential for this camera is quite exciting.

Practising focus on the centre of the gerbera. Viewing at 100% (pixel-peeping) shows these to not really be as sharp as I’d like. More practise needed for me

I’m thankful that circumstances and the weather were in my favour so I was able to experience totality during the solar eclipse two weeks ago.

The eclipse was occurring not long after sunrise, with the partial starting around 05:30, then totality starting about 06:34 and lasting barely over two minutes. The second partial lasted another hour after that.

I’m not a morning person. Really really not a morning person, especially on holiday. As soon as I learnt there was a total solar eclipse only a couple of hours flight away from me, my partner and I booked our holiday within days. It was weeks later that I learnt the eclipse was so early in the morning, and I must admit I grumbled a bit to myself. But chances like this don’t come along very often so I just had to suck it up.

We stayed in a small apartment by the water in Cairns. With the ocean just a minute’s walk away, in theory we could have an easy stroll to watch the eclipse. We may have even been able to see it from our balcony. But just to the south is a large unnamed headland, dense bushland and just the place for clouds to form. Having been warned by a friendly tourist info woman that there were clouds there most mornings, I resolved to get up before dawn two days before the eclipse to check it out.

Oh dear

Not getting any better

Is that rain?

Time to run inside!

As you can see, the Cairns esplanade was really a no-go. So the following day, my helpful yet weary husband and I once again set the alarm before dawn, and drove about half an hour north, to Ellis Beach, to see what the view would be like from there.

Ellis Beach at sunrise

Better chance for a clear sky?

Ellis Beach is a long narrow stretch of sand, so we were a little concerned about high tide, but it looked like our best bet. There are lots of small car parks dotted along the length of the beach, giving me hope that we’d be able to find space despite the predicted hordes of people who’d be descending on the coastline.

That night, north Cairns suffered a long power outage due to a downed power line. All my careful preparations went out the window as we wondered if we’d even have enough battery power in either of our mobiles for an alarm to go off! Thankfully, literally just as we were heading to bed, the power came back.

Then the day came. The alarm went off at 03:30am. We got ourselves ready and into the car, and drove north to the small dark road that winds up alongside Ellis Beach. The dark made it hard to spot the unlit parking lots, but by chance we spotted a P sign in our headlights (mostly thanks to the person behind me with who either had a very high car or high beams on, so I pulled over to let them pass). We parked easily, then we sat in the car protected from the wind until it was closer to sunrise.

There were already plenty of people there with more arriving every minute, but the beach had space for us all to spread out along it and not interfere (too much!) in each other’s photos. A small group of serious photographers had set up right by the car park, huge lenses at the ready, large bags of kit by their sides. I, on the other hand, was merely armed with:

Canon 550D (Rebel t2i or Kiss 2)

70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens – for that classic close-up

17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens – for scenic shots as the light changed

Tripod – acquired free with a magazine subscription several years ago, now falling apart and in dire need of replacement

You may note that I don’t have any big filters. I did mean to use my polarising filter to provide a bit of protection but forgot. Essentially, and this is NOT recommended, my research and experience led me to feel that my camera would be fine as long as I only used Live View (that is, the LCD screen rather than the view finder) to take the images, and I regularly either used the lens cap or turned Live View off when not photographing. By turning off Live View regularly, the mirror that projects the image up to the view finder drops and protects the camera sensor. I’ve taken many photos of sunsets, and the occasional sunrise, without any extra filters, and both my camera and I have been fine. Thankfully, this tactic worked. But, and I repeat, this is definitely NOT recommended by pretty much anyone sensible. I did have eclipse glasses so I could stare at the partial eclipse safely, but not being a terribly sensible person, I didn’t use any filters on my camera.

We wandered down the beach a small way and set up. The sky wasn’t looking great.

Eclipse morning

Well, it looked pretty, but not great for eclipse viewing. The cloud was happy where it was. But then, just over the horizon, we saw…

The sun!

Which then promptly hid behind the cloud.

Oh. Hello cloud

Then, what light through yonder cloud breaks…

Could it be

Do I see

Totality!

Corona

Diamond Ring and Shadow Bands

The moment passes

Cold light as the eclipse fades

What an experience. As the clouds cleared the beach cheered, and during those strange moments of totality, we all stared at the sun, blotted by the moon, a crazy eye hanging in the sky.

For my own reference as much as anything, the things I wish I’d done better:

Had two DSLRs, one to lock focus on the sun, one to capture the landscape around me. The light during an eclipse is truly surreal

Once I had the moon in my sights, lock focus. I wasted too much time waiting for my camera to find focus again, and it wasn’t always very successful and entirely unnecessary

Drop exposure at totality. Although I needed 1/4000 during the partial eclipse, the light levels drop significantly during totality. I took a bunch of black photos and panicked, I couldn’t think why! Then I realised, of course there wasn’t enough light. You can look at totality perfectly safely with your naked eye, so the camera needs a more normal exposure too

Check and clean the lens regularly. You have no idea how many spots I’ve removed from these photos. I cleaned my lens when I put it on the camera, but of course standing on a sandy beach facing into the wind is not going to keep it that way.

Bracket exposures. I thought this was on, but it turned off when I turned off my camera to change the lens and as I was firing in continuous mode and jumping around going “yay eclipse!” I didn’t notice. You can get much better details from the corona and other phenomena from a mildly HDR-ed image

A longer lens wouldn’t hurt, but then neither would a better camera…

And what I would recommend:

Preparation. As much as I hated the idea of it, waking before dawn the two days beforehand was really worth it, and gave me much needed confidence and less panic that I’d miss out on the day. As it happened, I was so excited that the early starts weren’t quite as painful as I thought they’d be. I do wish I’d re-read some of the guides I found online before, but with the powercut I was a bit distracted. And for the record, the Cairns esplanade had cloud during totality, so taking the extra time to drive north worked perfectly

Keep ISO at 100

Tripod, even a poor one is better than nothing, and thankfully it wasn’t very windy

Only use Live View

Use a remote to take the photos, to keep any movement on the camera to a minimum. Very necessary when focussing at the long end of a 70-300mm lens

Take a willing and able photography assistant. This took the form of my husband, who kept me company and helped me change lenses and is generally nice to have around

Enjoy! No matter what else, take a few precious seconds to just let the view sink in, without framing that view through the camera. It’s truly amazing.

It’s a bit of a cliché, but I love birds in flight, so I couldn’t pass up the symbolism here.

There are many free spirits of an avian nature in Iceland. In Iceland, birds are the most common wildlife you’ll see, as swathes of barren landscape struggle to support any animal that can’t fish or fly to warmer climes in winter.

The graceful artic tern prepares to dive

This is the kind of photo I could play with for hours, creating different effects. Silhouette or detail, enough contrast for the clouds or no, what colour for the background or leave it as grey? I’ve settled on what you see above for now, but it changes every time I play with this one.

Geese over north-east Iceland

Another image I’ve had fun playing with. Much of north-east Iceland is desert-like, ancient volcanoes slowly being eroded away into the otherwise flat landscape. But there’s nowhere these free spirits can’t travel.

Free Spirits of Vestmannaeyjar

And of course, the ever-present seagulls. Where there’s a coast, there’s a seagull or two… hundred. Also, I can’t help but think that that must be the house of a free spirit.